Ethereum Classic (ETC): ASICs, ETCG, and OTCQX- it’s all in the Acronyms

The price of Ethereum Classic (ETC) is in the red in both 24h and 7-day periods. With nothing much on that front, here is what has been going on with this crypto.

The Ethereum Classic community must have a lot to grapple with at the moment, especially the on-going debate about ASIC mining. That and the upcoming hard fork may have some unaware that there’s another way to look at ETC other than on the speculative market. That comes in the shape of Greyscale’s ETC Investment Fund, which joins Bitcoin as the two cryptocurrency assets offered by the Investment Group.

ETC hard fork – ASICS winning over

ASICs- application specific integrated circuits; they made Bitcoin, and proof of work, garner a reputation it has struggled to deal with. Now they are coming to ETC if Cody Burns gets away with his proposals.

Ethereum Classic built its reputation from maintaining that there wasn’t any need to change the code to suit the DAO rift, leading to a split with Ethereum (ETH). To the Classic community, the code is law. The crypto has been up in arms against the introduction of ASIC mining, appearing to literally be at war with such propositions. But what does one make of the recent remarks by ETC Advisor Cody Burns? He wants to have changes made to allow mining ether classic using the powerful ASICs. So, when the team tweets this message, we know the hard fork may end up being successful.

“For any algorithm, there will always be a path that custom hardware engineers can take to beat out general purpose hardware. It’s a fundamental limitation of general purpose hardware.”

In addition, ASIC-resistance appears to be a losing game with major players finding ways to beat algorithms that traditionally didn’t allow it. The Sia team said they did it with Equihash mining algorithm, and Bitmain released one for mining ETH. All these are falling in line with the upcoming update ECIP-1041 Difficulty Bomb HardFork that is expected at block 5.9 million on May 24th, 2018.

If it succeeds, the hard fork will be controversial in terms of altering Ethereum Classic (ETC)’s longstanding defiance against unnecessary change. But it could come with a lot of hope for GPU mining enthusiast. Apart from the expected changes allowing ASIC mining to take place on the ETC platform, but it opens up cheap GPU mining, probably convincing a host of current miners bothered with the high cost of GPU rigs. In the end, other than ETC mining becoming monopolized, even the miners who are reluctant to get new mining equipment will still be able to mine.

ETCG on OTCQX

The OTCQX is the topmost marketplaces for trading stocks over the counter. Now Grayscale, an investment fund company has added ETC to its other asset Bitcoin.

The listing of ETCG, the over-the-counter symbol for Ethereum Classic Grayscale, may not mean much to the cryptocurrency investor whose funds are in a wallet somewhere. However, there could be a possibility of the crypto gaining some much-needed exposure, something that could possibly result in the change of fortune for ETC prices and valuation in the crypto markets. Ethereum Classic has noted this possibility, subtly implying that ETCG was a way of saying the crypto industry was getting into the mainstream.

“The listing of Grayscale’s $ETC fund on OTCQX is another reminder that this industry is here to stay.”

Why would Grayscale’s ETC fund be vital for Ethereum Classic?

Well, this might not be music to the ears of those who view crypto as pure vehicles towards making speculative gains. If you are into ETC and feel that the price of the coin will skyrocket at one point, then buying shares ETCG shares is a great move. Although not similar to buying ETC, the fund provides investors with a chance to get the shares at a rate of about 0.97 ETC each.

The price of Ethereum Classic (ETC) hasn’t been great at moving in leaps and bounds, but there’s an indication that that could change, especially as the Ethereum Classic team look to make the platform competitive in the dApps and smart contracts space.

An investor who buys a number of shares now can trade them over the counter without having to worry about the volatility in the market. ETCG is currently listed on Yahoo Finance, trading at a premium. That eliminates the reliance on price speculation, but if value skyrockets, investors get better returns from the sale of their shares.

The acronyms may not mean much to an investor who wants the prices to climb every other day. However, for the ultimate hodler, a lot of sense can be derived from them.